“And this thing, whatever it is, might have been the source of the bad blood between him and Matthew?” Simon surmised.
“Perhaps.” Abby glanced away, her mind reeling through everything Guy had said—and everything he hadn’t that she couldn’t keep herself from imagining. The camp… the smell of it, he’d said, from three miles away… it was so unbearably awful. How had Matthew been able to walk out of that camp, knowing his family might have experienced something similar? How had he been able to cope with that information, to go on? “I hope Lily and Matthew ended up together,” Abby said suddenly, her voice turning fierce. “I hope they had children and dogs and a lovely, lovely house. I hope they were happy. Really happy.”
Simon cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her like a searchlight. He could tell, she knew, that there was a personal undercurrent to her words, a throb of feeling that had less to do with Matthew and Lily, and more to do with herself. “Do you?” he said quietly.
“Yes.” Abby swallowed, more of a gulp. “Because no one should be in thrall to their past, to whatever happened, no matter how awful.” Tears rose behind her eyes, in her throat, and she pushed it all back. “You should be able to find a way to go on… to forgive yourself… to be happy. Somehow.”
Abby hugged her knees to her chest as Simon sat on the edge of the bed. “Why,” he asked, “do I get the feeling we’re not talking about the past anymore? At least not about Matthew or Lily.”
“We’re not,” Abby agreed, the words catching in her throat. She hadn’t expected to make it personal, because she never did, and yet some part of her acknowledged the rightness of the moment, and how everything—from meeting to Simon, to finding the medal, to coming here—had been leading to this. A confession. An absolution. Both were necessary.
“Abby.” Simon reached for her hand.
She stared at her knees, willing herself not to blink.
“Let me tell you something,” she said softly, and Simon threaded his fingers through hers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
December 1944
The colonel reminded Matthew of a mad dog. With the pistol pointed in his face, he felt himself go quiet and cold inside, a familiar blankness that stole over him like a freezing mist, keeping out fear, leaving only needed certainty.
“Well?” The colonel demanded. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m not a spy.”
“Says you—”
“I’m a German, and a Jew.” How many times would he have to say it? These things that made him who he was, that for some meant he was utterly worthless, no more than rubbish to be rid of, and yet right now they could be his salvation. “I trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland—”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It was a covert operation.” Matthew kept the edge from his voice, as the colonel’s gun was still just a couple of inches from his face. Surely the man wasn’t going to actually shoot him. And yet Matthew had heard of the private who had shot a captured German in the head, just because he could. This man was a colonel. “They trained us to be interrogators of prisoners of war, because we speak German, and we know the customs and culture. I’m here to interrogate, not spy. If I were a spy, why would I come straight into headquarters? I’d have to be an idiot.”
The man stared at him for a long moment, his hand steady on his gun, not wavering a millimeter. The other two officers simply watched, waiting. One of them winked at Matthew, which he didn’t find particularly comforting. He wondered if they would even care if he was shot in the head. He was German. He’d said so himself. Maybe that was all that mattered.
Then, finally, thankfully, the colonel lowered his pistol. “You’d better be here to fight,” he stated flatly. “We’ll be damned lucky if we’re not taken prisoners ourselves.”
Matthew released a pent-up breath slowly, so no one could hear the needed exhalation. “What’s the situation?” he asked when he trusted his voice to sound level. His legs felt weak. He’d been afraid, even if he hadn’t let himself feel it in the moment.
“The situation?” the colonel repeated in exasperation, panic giving his words a ragged edge. “Just about the worst snafu I’ve ever seen.”
Matthew kept his expression neutral as he listened to the senior officer describe the current crisis of events. On what had been thought to be a sleepy front in Belgium, used to train raw recruits, the Wehrmacht had poured in masses of artillery, tanks, and hundreds of thousands of troops, including Waffen-SS units.
The entire center of the VIII Corps had collapsed as the German army pushed the Allies westward, and the 82nd Airborne ha
d been called to hold defensive positions and attempt to push the Germans back towards Germany.
“We’ve got everyone who knows how to pull a trigger out there,” the colonel said. “And everyone who doesn’t. We need every last man if we’re going to hold the line.”
“Where do you want me to go?” Over the last few months, Matthew had done precious little fighting, as he was considered too valuable to be wasted on a front line. But clearly this was a different situation entirely, and part of him was more than ready to do his part. To pull a trigger.
Ten minutes later, he was walking through a pine forest, the ground thickly blanketed with snow, towards a battalion’s machine gun company. It would have been a peaceful scene, save for the traces of light arcing the sky and the thunder of guns like a stampede in the distance. God only knew what was happening. Matthew felt removed from it all, even as his heart thudded harder.
He called out his name and rank as he approached the machine gun positioned at the crest of hill, throwing himself on the ground next to a grimy-faced sergeant. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“We’re getting the shit kicked out of us,” the sergeant replied with a grim laugh. “It’s been a God-awful couple of days, let me tell you.”